Taylor Swift As You’ve Never Seen Her Before

Pop queen, power broker, hater vanquisher—Taylor Swift’s star has never been brighter. On a trip to her childhood home, she wonders: What (on earth) will she do next?

BY NOW YOU KNOW that the past few years have been extraordinary ones in the life of Taylor Swift. Even if you have only casual knowledge of Swift’s music—there may be six or seven souls left on the planet who can’t sing all the words to “Shake It Off”—you’re aware that Swift has become not only one of the most successful recording artists ever, but also an unrivaled power broker who has prevailed in a volatile media economy and brought today’s music overlords to heel. Swift’s 2015 stare-down of Apple—she declined to put her hit album 1989 on Apple’s nascent streaming-music service when the company said it would not pay artists during its initial launch; Apple changed its policy immediately and paid everyone—was a seismic example of a single artist’s toppling corporate might. At 26, Swift is world famous, wealthy, critically celebrated, a style influencer, and a cultural movement unto herself, recognizable everywhere she goes. She also has two awesome cats.